Given the Complexity of Large Cities, Can Urban Resilience be Attained at All?

Large cities display an exceptional degree of complexity in a network of dynamic ecological, social, economic, cultural, and political interrelationships (Eckardt, 2009). They are characterized by high population density, high resource consumption as well as intensive land use, and they are often the origins of change processes. At the same time, large cities are particularly vulnerable to changes and disruptions because of the concentration of material assets and human lives. The concept of resilience describes the factors that can influence the ability of ecosystems and societies to withstand disturbances (Berkes & Folke, 1998; Folke et al., 2002; Walker & Empirical studies of resilience (e.g., Fleischhauer, 2008; Godschalk, 2003) often employ research approaches which focus on portions of the complex relationships between ecosystems and societies.